Stop and Think About This: Anti-Smoking Groups are Telling the Public that Touching a Smoker’s Clothes Can Cause Massive Skin and Neurological Damage

My Warnings About the Degradation of the Scientific Integrity of the Tobacco Control Movement Have, Unfortunately, Come True

For the past eight years, I have been warning the tobacco control community about a gradual but steady decline in the scientific rigor of the movement. During the first three of those years, my warnings were internal and expressed through tobacco control list-serves, discussion groups, and other internal communications. For the past five years, I have written about this issue on The Rest of the Story.

Many of my colleagues in tobacco control have dismissed my warnings, telling me that I was being overly critical and that the scientific integrity of the movement was in no danger.

As we sit here today, two major tobacco control groups – Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) are telling the public that simply touching a smoker’s clothing is extremely dangerous and can cause massive skin and neurological damage to children.

Both organizations – on their web sites – have the following statement: “Parents who do not smoke in the presence of their children, including even those who smoke only outdoors, nevertheless put their children at serious risk of “massive damage” to both skin and nerve cells, since a neurotoxin in thirdhand tobacco smoke penetrates the child’s skin, according to recent research in Germany.” (ASH statement here; ANR statement here)

If readers stop and think about this for just a moment, they will realize that my warnings have indeed come true: the scientific rigor of the movement has deteriorated. So much so that we are now putting out communications to the public warning that simply touching a smoker’s clothing can cause massive neurologic and skin damage to children.

Need I say more? The case appears to be closed.

The Rest of the Story

If we review how these claims are “supported,” you will see what I mean in arguing that the scientific rigor of the tobacco control movement has deteriorated.

Upon which of the following do you think these claims are based:

(a) A meta-analysis of several peer-reviewed scientific studies demonstrating clinically significant skin and neurologic damage among children who have touched a smoker’s clothing.

(b) A single, peer-reviewed, scientific study demonstrating clinically significant skin and neurologic damage among children who have touched a smoker’s clothing.

(c) A single peer-reviewed scientific study demonstrating an effect of tobacco smoke residue on skin and nerve cells in a cell culture model.

(d) A study demonstrating an effect of tobacco smoke residue on skin and nerve cells in a cell culture model.

(e) A press release issued in conjunction with the publication of a study on the effect of smokers’ clothing on skin and nerve cells.

(f) A press release issued in conjunction with a non-peer-reviewed study on the effect of smokers’ clothing on skin and nerve cells.

(g) A press release by researchers at an academic institution, without any accompanying study.

(h) A press release by researchers at a textile institution, without any accompanying study.

(i) A press release, without any accompanying study, by researchers at a textile institution which aims to market, and profit from, the sale of protective clothing sold to parents who they are able to scare about the potential toxic effects to children of touching a smoker’s clothing.

Sadly, the answer is:
I. A press release, without any accompanying study, by researchers at a textile institution which aims to market, and profit from, the sale of protective clothing sold to parents who they are able to scare about the potential toxic effects to children of touching a smoker’s clothing.

Do you mean to tell me that Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights – the leading anti-smoking group dealing with the issue of secondhand smoke – is disseminating the claim that a child can suffer massive skin and nerve cell damage simply from touching a smoker’s clothes, based solely on the results of a press release by a textile firm that is aiming to sell special protective clothes to parents alarmed about the potential effects of their kid touching their clothes?

Do you mean to tell me that before putting this claim up on its web site, ANR failed to scrutinize the story to find out whether there was an actual study that could be evaluated for its scientific value and merit?

Do you mean to tell me that before alarming the public with a hysterical claim which flies in the face of common sense, ANR failed to put forward even an iota of scientific judgment to evaluate whether there was any validity behind the claim?

The rest of the story, sadly, is that ANR blindly disseminated this claim without any scientific scrutiny whatsoever. The claim is based solely on a press release.

And that press release does not come from objective scientists, but from a crazy institution that is aiming to sell textiles that claim to neutralize the toxins in cigarette smoke and can be sold to hysterical parents who are worried that their kids might be harmed just by touching their clothes.

The same institution which is aiming to sell the protective clothing for smokers is today boasting about a new type of floor mop.

So the rest of the story, actually, is the following:

ANR and ASH are telling the public that touching a smoker’s clothing can cause massive skin and nerve damage to children, based solely on a press release from an institution that markets floor mops.